Tag Archives: National Novel Writing Month

NaNoWriMo 2010, Day Thirty: DONE!

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I made it, kids! It was an uneven, weird, at times exhausting month, but I made it. I screeched into home plate, keyboard smoking at about 1:30pm or so this afternoon with a grand total of 53,212 words!

I’m not sure how I managed to wrap the whole thing up today, because last night when I sat down at 7:30 it seemed like I had a LOT left to write. However, by 10:20 a bunch of weird and unexpected things had happened to my characters, and the story seemed on the verge of wrapping itself up! Today I sat down with the intent of just adding some words to the count in preparation for the “real” writing session this evening, and an hour later I sat back and went, “Hey – HEY! I’m…I’M DONE!”

Man, another year of NaNo, and another novel. It’s pretty freaking obvious that I’m capable of actually mechanically assembling enough words to write a novel. I’m kind of worried about what the next real question/challenge is: that of turning those drafts into works that are also so entertaining that not only do people want to read them, they want to PAY to read them. Urgh. How do I do that? When I figure that out, I’ll let y’all know, and likely I’ll be doing jumping jacks at that point.

For now, hah, for now I’m writing 400-word “information articles” on “old metal signs, vintage metal signs, retro metal signs.” It took me about two hours to write 400 words on that somewhat repetitive subject, and I should clear $2.80 for that effort, which covers about half the cost of the coffee drink I bought while I was writing it. Hmmm…writing, good. Finance? Not so good. Oh, and I found out AFTER I got all fixed up on this content site that they only pay you when you’ve amassed enough work for a $25 payment. Somehow they leave that out of all the info up front. You only see that once you’ve written your first article and submitted. Cute, right? How many people do you suppose write four or five articles, get tired of it, and then never write enough to get a first payment? This may be the reason that the company was able to inform me in a recent email that their first-year business effort netted them a status of “in the black” for every day but one out of the first year of operation.

I say all this with cynicism, but a healthy does of humor as well. I don’t hold anything against them for the work I’m given now. It’s still a good way for me to get my chops back, and I can already say to any prospective freelance employers, “Yeah, I’m familiar with SEO writing. I’ve done that.”

Okay, now my word count for this entry is over 400 words, which means I’ve hit the $2.80 mark for content, and I should quit while I’m ahead. Y’all take care, and keep up with whatever creative endeavors you enjoy. I wish you the best in your efforts.

NaNoWriMo 2010, Day Twenty-One

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Oh, man, my brain is toast, dudes. I wrote a little on Friday, I think one thousand words. I wrote a little on Saturday, maybe 1,400 words. Today? Today was a day I vowed I would get caught up or stay caught up, or forge ahead with a might forge of such ferociousness that blacksmiths across the land would quake at its fiery intensity! (or something like that)

Today I bent to my mighty oven (you could call it a laptop if you like) and stoked the fires of my creativity. I turned the molten mass of words within the forge, pumping the bellows with vigor. Sweat broke upon my brow, and my face grew blackened from the smoke and ash thrown about by my hardiest and most determined blows upon the anvil of the great Macintosh.

Hours later I emerged, still not finished, but with an impressive rough forging of such improvement, that even I was amazed at my productivity. I cast my eyes upon the progress bar at the bottom of the Word doc and beheld the magic number: 39,168, a gain of 5,200 words over the previous day’s efforts.

I sit before you, battered and weathered, but not beaten! I shall write on! And before midnight of November 30th, my document shall bear the number 50,000 (words) at the very least. (And, dudes, I really hope it doesn’t go longer than that, ’cause, man I got a full plate! I didn’t even tell y’all about the sculpture work I did on Saturday plus all the freaking freelance writing jobs I applied for.)

Anyone out there writing this November – my continued best wishes for you! If you’re behind, bend to it and get writing! You can still do this! And if you’re up to speed, keep up the good work! Happy noveling, kids.

NaNoWriMo 2010, Day Nineteen

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Man, I’m wiped out. Thought I’d get a lot more writing done tonight, but at least I got in something over a thousand words. I’m stunned to see that I’m actually still on schedule. No frakking way! I was sure I was at least three thousand behind by now. Man, I guess I wrote a lot earlier in the week. I’m at 32,543 now. Not bad, not bad.

So busy this week. I’ve been applying for all kinds of freelance writing work, which is quite a switch for me. I haven’t done this sort of application-heavy stuff ever in my life. I guess it was just time for that to happen. I have some leads, and a few of them might even pay money that you can count! We’ll see. I’ll update here when something of note comes down the pipeline. I might be doing something related to motorcycles. That would be fun.

In the meantime, more writing for NaNo, and I gotta get back on track with some of this sculpture work. I might be falling behind a little, darn it!

NaNoWriMo 2010, Day Sixteen

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Wow, it’s been a while since I updated! Ten days worth! This month’s schedule is apparently just as full and harried as I had thought it would be. If I’m not writing, then I’m sculpting, and if I’m not doing either of those I’m attending to something like the regular job, or sleeping. Occasionally I eat. Oh, and I have been doing drawings with Jem! So, yeah, been busy.

I’m feeling a little run ragged at this point, and I honestly feel like NaNo was actually kind of easy the last two years! I mean, heck, I pretty much dropped everything to write those years, and this year I’m still trying to pile other stuff on top. I must be a sucker for stress.

The sculpture is continuing to progress, however, which is awesome and kind of amazing. I hope to do some significant construction with it this weekend, start actually sticking one piece to another, add the frame, that sort of thing.

The novel is, well, I don’t know what it is. It’s…coming along? I’m struggling a bit. I’ve had some parts where I feel like I literally Scotch-taped some scenes together to make them work. It’s clunky, but I’m forging on. Tonight I wrote a scene that I like. Well, I didn’t so much like the way I wrote it, ’cause it was a bit rushed, but I like the scene itself. I will enjoy rewriting it. (Did I just say I was going to rewrite this thing…!)

So the novel moves ahead. I should compare notes with last year. I wonder if I felt like my novel was just starting to gain momentum at this point last year as well. Oh, and I’m at 30,258 words – and NOW I feel like it’s picking up? Geez!

NaNoWriMo 2010, Day Six

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I am officially at 12,600 words, which puts me ahead from the daily average of 10,002 for today. That’s not bad, but I would like to be further ahead than that. I hope to possibly write again a bit this evening before going to bed. If not, there will be much more writing tomorrow.

I worked on sculpture this afternoon, and was pleased with the amount of work I got done. I put in something like three hours on it. It didn’t seem like I got much done until the end, and it still sort of seems that way, but as I often say, “Well, I had to sit there for X hours to do it, so it doesn’t matter if it seems like a lot or not, it was going to take me X hours regardless.”

These are the major elements of the most recent sculpture.

Tomorrow, more sculpting, more writing. So far I believe I’m on track for both, or closely so. Sculpting is a littler harder to guess, but if I break it up into four-week estimates, I guess it looks like I’ve gotten a fair amount done for one week. Similar progress over the next three weeks should (hopefully!) result in a finished product at the end of the month…I think?

Continued good luck to all my WriMo friends! Keep at it! We’re one-fifth of the way through!

NaNoWriMo 2010, Day Four

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Day Three got me zip in the word count, but I was pretty much planning on that. I drew that night with Jem instead of writing, and it paid off, because we actually, finally finished a piece! Not sure what we’re going to do with that, but it’s done now. I’ll get pics up later.

For Day Four I planned to get more writing done, kind of bulk up on some writing, but it didn’t quite work out that way. I wanted to get around 3000 words down. I got almost exactly two thousand, 1,990, actually. Not bad. Good for a day, and a bit past the 1,667-word minimum. I’m up to 9,444 words now, which still has me ahead of the curve. I’m very close to being one fifth of the way done, and that feels good.

This weekend there’s a break in band activity, and I plan on bearing down on both sculpture work and writing. I hope to make my word count literally soar into the realms of the ridiculous and to have some sculpture progress worth showing to you. I hope to have pics. DOn’t hold your breath on that one, though, because I seem to have become terrible at actually posting photos even though I’ve taken thousands over the last few months.

More to report on Day Five later. Write on, WriMos!

NaNoWriMo, Day Two

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Today ends at 7,454 words. That’s well past the necessary 3,334 to keep on pace for a 30-day win, but I’m padding. There are going to be some days where I’m sure I’ll not get to write much. I have a sculpture commission that is due in mid-December, so I have to make sure that I am more than on track with NaNo. Today, in fact, I even started on the sculpture as a “break” from writing. The irony! I didn’t get much done on it, but it is a start, and that’s important. I also managed to squeeze in getting some laundry done and getting some shaving cream picked up at the store. These are the little things that suddenly seem monumental during NaNo. You go, “I’ll just go to the store – wait! That’s…that’s going to take 23 minutes out of my day! I could write 500 words in 23 minutes! I…I don’t know if I can make that sacrifice! Maybe I’ll just shave with bar soap tomorrow…”

Shaving will commence as normal tomorrow. And I’m not even close to feeling like I need to give up time for showering. Not yet, anyway.

Best of luck to all you fellow WriMos out there!

NaNoWriMo, Day 1

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All right, kids, it’s that time of year again. I’m starting it dog-tired, because I was at Steak & Shake last night at midnight kicking off this insanity with about a dozen other writers. This post is short, because I’m really exhausted. I’m about a thousand words into my story. I’m not sure what it’s about yet, except an electric ray figures into it, and so does a boy in his teens. We’ll discover it together, then, eh? Come along and let’s see what we find in the insanity that is National Novel Writing Month. Only 49,000 words to go!

Night Light and NaNo Novel

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This was the only picture I had energy left for after spending about two hours straight talking about my NaNo novel. The discussion was a lot more exciting than this picture, but not so exciting that you’d actually want to hear the details. I just got some feedback and ideas on what I might want to change for the rewrite. Ugh, I just backed up my commitment to the rewrite in that last sentence. Gah. GAH! Rewrite! AHHHH!

I should do this, though. I should rewrite it. I told myself I was going to, and, I don’t know, maybe it’s not such a bad story, you know? Maybe. That might not even matter, the good or lack of good in the whole thing. It might just be important that I go back and write the whole thing, you know? Might just be important to follow through, to get some practice at that, get some idea of what it’s like to do a rewrite, maybe confirm that I actually am into this whole thing. With all this metal stuff lately, it’s been hard to concentrate on other stuff, but that novel is out there now, out there on my hard drive, and I think I should give it some effort. It may not be awesome, but it’s not horrid, either.